Private Golf and Country Clubs often decide that a good use of their marketing dollars is to produce a video. They think that doing so will reach untapped markets and draw prospects into the Club. It’s a good approach when combined with a healthy strategic marketing plan, but often times Club’s miss the mark.
When a strategy is built without the clear understanding of what ‘drives’ the end consumer, marketing videos (for example) get produced and never see a healthy return on the often hefty investment required. The reason is that they miss the mark. They don’t speak to the consumer and what they’re looking for.
Abundant examples can be found online of Clubs who produce videos that illustrate sweeping views of their EMPTY golf course, or pans of interior shots of EMPTY dining rooms. While the scene may be beautiful it’s missing ACTION, FUN…PEOPLE. I recently came across a video that was featured by a trade association, produced by Glen Oaks CC to give newcomers to their area a good feel for their Club before they visited. The video is long at 4:41 and while the scenes are in their own right beautiful, I really feel that Glen Oaks missed the mark big time on these videos. I was bored. The music is slow and sleepy, the views of the emptycourse and emptypool area really put me to sleep. It did not make me want to visit the Club. If I were the target I might think to myself, “is that what the Club will be like when I visit it? Empty?”.
Compare this approach to the strategy taken by a company such as Discovery Land Company in their videobooks for each of their communities. Notice the difference? PEOPLE! MEMBERS! Engaging, using the Club, interacting, joyful, excited and having a good time! What a difference this makes. This gets me excitedas a viewer. That’s what I’m looking for. Fun, friendships, something for everyone in my family. A party that’s going on and I want to be part of it.
I hope that marketing directors for private clubs will reconsider their approach before spending Member’s money on ineffective videos that will not resonate with the end consumer. Understand your target and what ‘moves’ them – then bring it to life before their eyes in your next promotional video. Deliver something that will get your potential member really excited about your club and eager to invest in the ‘experiences’ your club promises to deliver.
What is Disruptive Innovation? Historically, “disrupters” are visionaries who grasp how an existing idea, product or service can be improved upon, produced for less or made more accessible to millions. Take Apple for example. The development of the iPhone has given consumers a way to communicate and connect like never before. Or Amazon.com, which has successfully brought millions of products to one storefront with better prices. “Disrupters” don’t settle for “this is how we’ve always done it.”
Taking the time, and making the effort to welcome innovation into Club events, may be the “spark” that a Club needs to generate more usage and retention among its current users, and as a result, new Member referrals.
Legacy Memberships can be a great mechanism for retaining Full members, generating additional dues income and ancillary spend, and at the same time build a pipeline of future members. While the examples run the gamut here is a program that I’m familiar with…
Regular members can elect their issue(s) to become a Legacy member. All issue(s) go through an admission process and when invited by the Board of Directors to join the club, they pay a nominal fee (some fraction of what it would cost to transfer the membership during lifetime) and begin paying dues. Identifying the best model of privileges is tricky. Ideally something like social privileges with some golf. Dues can be scaled based on age, for example 24-30 (45% of full dues); 31-40 (55% of full dues); 41-50 (75% of full dues); 50+ (full dues).
After being in the Legacy program for a specified period of time, the parent has the option to transfer their membership to one issue. If more than one issue is an active Legacy member, they must elect a different category at the time the transfer of equity is made from the parent to the elected issue.
Offering a Legacy program allows adult children of your members to enjoy the Club with their parent and may retain the parent longer. Club cultures can benefit when memberships are handed down from one generation to another.
Does your club have a Legacy membership? Please share what you like (or don’t like) about your current program.
The National Golf Foundation (NGF) has launched the American Golf Census to count the country’s estimated 27 million golfers. The American Golf Census will improve the industry’s marketing and promotional capabilities, stimulating rounds played, and equipment and incremental sales locally. Additionally, information about golfers obtained from the Census will allow policymakers to better understand how golf enhances the lives of millions of Americans with various demographics. Please participate in the census by visiting the American Golf Census Sweepstakes.
Is there really a place for social networking in a private club? With privacy and monitoring issues at the forefront of concern when it comes to social media, are these the true reasons for not implementing the medium into your clubs communication, or is it simply because you don’t understand how to go about it?
A club I represented at one time was so uncomfortable with the new medium that they wanted nothing to do with it. Another Club that I worked with was very open to it and so we entered the space. But where I realize we went wrong in both cases is I did not think to draw up a social media strategy in advance. With the second club aforementioned, I launched a YouTube site and a Twitter page and a Facebook page without much foresight on how I planned to manage these social interfaces and so I feel that their effectiveness only went so far. Unfortunately, I tend to learn the hard way, so I share with you my example and what I’ve learned in hopes that you might go about it with more introspection and ideally be abundantly successful with your initiatives.
To Tweet Or Not To Tweet…that is the question. A reflection of Twitter and its place in a private club. Part I
Twitter is a communication platform that helps businesses stay connected to their customers using 140 characters or less in each post. Used widely by millions of people to share their ideas and wherabouts with strangers and friends alike, businesses have been left wondering how they can get in on the action and grow their market share. For those of you who are new to Twitter, you can visit http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/ for a course on Twitter 101 for businesses. It shares the following example of companies that have successfully used this medium to generate revenues and grow their customer base.
When people working in the Empire State Building twittered that they were craving ice cream delivery, New York local chain Tasti D Lite was there to listen and meet their need. When electronics buyers look for good deals, the Dell Outlet Twitter account helps them save money with exclusive coupons. When Houston’s coffee drinkers decide where to get their daily dose, many choose Coffee Groundz, which lets them order via Twitter.
Some social media experts proclaim that twitter is the single most important social technology since the inception of email and online live chat. In my opinion, it has to meet one or more of the 3R’s. That is, does it support retention of members, recruitment of new members, or repetitive usage of our current membership base? If something doesn’t meet these criteria, then I usually don’t consider it worth my time. With that said, utilizing Twitter allows us to deliver content that engages our member and fosters a relationship of trust, leading to increased loyalty/retention.It also allows us to communicate relative information to our members using a medium other than email marketing. Is it really necessary to send out an email every day with our lunch special? With the number of emails that we each receive in our INBOX on a daily basis, no wonder our members aren’t reading them anymore!
According to Nielsen, more time is spent on social networking sties than is spent on reading or sending emails anyway, so why not utilize Twitters free portal for communicating small bits of relative information to members, such as lunch or dinner specials. A daily tweet of today’s lunch special may just bring in one more hungry stomach. I imagine a member at his or her desk receiving a tweet from the clubs chef at 11:00 a.m. every day with a description of a fresh baked lunch entree that is so well written it makes your mouth water. Other potential topics might include golf tips, healthy living updates, tournament status updates, business building tips and personal growth topics. One could utilize tweets to alert members of registration deadlines and let them know when events are almost full to encourage those sitting on the fence to act now.
And what about the group of ‘membership sales prospects’? Allowing them to follow the clubs Twitter page not only fosters a new relationship, but can also identify the club as the authority within your community, leveraging an advantage over the competition. It could possibly garner the urge to make that commitment to join as a member if they’re seeing all the activities at the Club and its dedication to communicate regularly with members.
One of the private resorts in my neighborhood has a twitter page that the general manager posts tweets on that make me laugh out loud. His name is John Gates and his handle is “GM Gone Mad” and on some days he’s done just that! He has 1,035 followers and in talking with him he equates his twitter page to the modern day ‘wire’ for the news media. A number of his followers are local businesses or media reporters/writers that get his information and pass it on to their customer base via email marketing, news articles, calendar listings, etc. He says about a third of his followers are leisure customers and resort members. When it comes to the value for members he said it is to build equity and foster the relationship between the club and the member and their benefit would be reminding them of upcoming activities or specials at the last minute. Here are some of his tweets, enjoy…
So what is the first thing to consider when drawing up a social media strategy? First, consider the purpose of engagement. Why are you doing it ? Jet Blue Airlines manager of corporate communications, Morgan Johnston had his “Twitter kernel of truth” when he came to realize that to be successful with twitter you need to be receptive to what your followers want. How do you know what that is? You can gauge their responses to your tweets, and—as it turns out—you can also ask them.
Secondly, what internal groups need to be involved? Which managers will contribute to the tweets? How frequently do you plan to tweet? How will you leverage your team, partners or other resources?
And third, how will you measure progress and success?
When JetBlue faced dead air after pushing out new route announcements, Johnston started wondering what people wanted from the account. So he asked. The responses surprised him. “People said simply, ‘This is what we want. We want to see you asking.’” He adds that people even went as far as to say that they wanted the company to see them as a resource for helping JetBlue deliver a better product
This is true in a private club setting as well. The social media platform is still new to many of us and we’re scrambling to understand how best to use it in our business, but to not participate may just be a bigger mistake than ‘learning as you go’. One should not focus so much on being a social media pro, but focused more on expressing its brand and engaging its customer base. Incorporating Twitter into your overall digital and marketing footprint, is just one more way to communicate to and with your members and prospective members. Much like Jet Blue experienced, this medium can be equivalent to the modern day ‘comment box’ that many clubs are accustomed to (be sure to use private tweets for certain issues).
Club & Resort Business recently published a story entitled, “The management team at The Rim Golf Club is doing its part to provide pristine playing conditions” in which Justin Ruiz’s, the club’s Certified Golf Course Superintendent uses twitter as well as an online blog to communicate regularly with The Rim GC’s membership about the various practices he and his staff are following and projects they are working on. In the article, written by Betsy Gilliland, Ruiz is quoted as saying, “It’s like putting a face to the name, it gives members a better understanding of what and why we’re doing what we’re doing.” (View Ruiz’s blog at http://therimgolfclub.blogspot.com). These mediums also serve as a forum to answer members’ questions, particularly the queries of those who do not play as frequently.
I welcome you, the Reader, to share with me (and other readers) how your club is using Twitter or any other social mediums to communicate with members and prospects alike.
Stay tuned for my next post, part II of a reflection on Twitter and its place in private clubs. This time we’ll be discussing the use of this medium internally amongst management, boards and staff.
“Director of First Impressions” is the title now given to many receptionists or front desk personnel. But did anyone mention that the goal is to have a good first impression?
I laugh because I was visiting my local private city club for lunch the other day and the young ladies behind the front desk seemed less than enthused about their job on that particular afternoon. I hadn’t been to the club in awhile and so I presented my membership card upon arrival to make the greeting less uncomfortable for them. (I have worked in the private club industry for eleven years and always hated asking members for their names. I always felt it was part of my job to know their names. In fact, prior to club events my colleagues often found me flipping through the photo directory matching up the faces of members with the reservation sheet so I was prepared to greet them by name. This was always much appreciated by the member.)
When I arrived, the club was not busy being as it was after the lunch hour. I took a seat in the bar area just 20 feet away from the front desk. When the server finally made his way over to me he had to ask for my member number. I thought to myself…being as the young gal sitting behind the desk had nothing else to do, shouldn’t she have gotten up and walked the ten feet over to the bar to let the server know what my name and member number were so he could greet me by name? It didn’t even cross her mind. Instead, she sat there with the other young lady and a gentelmen from the dining room (all employees) deeply embedded in some personal conversation.
Nice first impression.
On my way out I noticed her placard emblazoned with her title on it and I commented, “Director of First Impression, what a title!”
She didn’t even smile.
Ha! I thought to myself. Someone forgot to mention that she was expected to make a good first impression. I meant to send the General Manager a note about this experience. I shall do so this afternoon….
Don’t feel bad local city club, its the first impression that I believe most clubs fail at. I phoned a professional acquaintance of mine just yesterday to discuss business at his golf club. I wanted to offer my services as I heard they were down nearly 15% for the year and perhaps needed some help with generating new memberships.
The voice that came over the phone when it was answered on their end was less than enthusiastic. She must have been having a bad day. She seemed irritated and was short with me. Hmmm…could her attitude be making a difference in member recruitment and satisfaction? May sound simplistic, but I do believe it could have something to do with it, even on a micro scale.
Let me offer you the opposite end of the scale…
A beautiful high end private club in Gladstone, New Jersey. When you call their club you get no recording, no auto teller, just a friendly voice on the other end of the line that answers with, “Good Afternoon, Thank you for calling X Golf Club, this is Melissa, I can help you.” Her tone is welcoming, friendly, upbeat and ready to help with whatever request I might have. Simplistic? Perhaps. Impactful? Most definitely.
Looking to grow your dues line? Trying to stop the bleeding of member attrition? Start with an unbiased critique of your ‘Director of First Impression’. For a lot of clubs, the person in that role has been there for years and knows the members names well, but are they making a positive impact on the daily visit to the club for both members and guests alike? Are they courteous over the phone? Do they represent your organization in a positive light to prospective candidates for employment? If not, I’m not saying ‘fire them’ just find another position for them.
At the end of the day, the success of this position is just as much about personality as it is about training. So be sure you have the right individual in the position and then train them on the importance of their role within the organization.
Private Club Membership Marketing 